What The Film!? – Far Cry

January 14th, 2013 Dane Sager

What The Film?! is a weekly column exclusive to Under The Gun Review that brings to light the plot holes Hollywood hoped you’d never notice. Written by comedy writer Dane Sager, this column shows no mercy to films that try and pull the proverbial wool over our eyes.

If you know a film with major plot holes that you feel needs to be exposed, tell us! Email utgjames@gmail.com with the subject “What The Film” and we’ll try to get your suggestion featured on the site.

Hey everyone! Dane is currently out of town, so he asked me to step in and do this week’s review for him. My name is Brody Cats and am certainly a real person. I’m certainly not a fictional character that was made up for Dane to write in a different style. No way! That would be silly! He certainly didn’t come up with this name by seeing his dog Brody and his roommate’s cats sleeping together on a dog bed. That would be too ridiculous. I am a real person and I love all things. I’ve never seen a bad movie and I’m here to defend 2008’s Far Cry, which currently holds a 0% at Rotten Tomatoes.

Look! He’s holding a gun that he’s going to shoot. It’s like a perfect movie adaptation of a popular FPS.

Far Cry was created initially as a tech demo to show off the capabilities of a new videocard that would ultimately end up powering the original Xbox. It featured tropical islands, dense jungles, and what was a very impressive draw distance for the time. There was enough of an interest in the demo that Crytek decided to beef it up into a full game.

The game was successful enough to warrant several console spin-offs (Far Cry Instincts, Far Cry Evolution, Far Cry Predator, and Far Cry Vengeance), and arcade light-gun shooter (Far Cry Paradise Lost),two direct sequels, as well as a several spiritual sequels in the form of the Crysis series. Uwe Boll purchased the film rights before the first game even came out, as he tends to do with a lot of his video-game adaptations.

Pictured here is Far Cry, Far Cry 2, and Far Cry 3. Do you notice any similarities between the games?

If there’s one thing that you notice that every single game in the franchise shares, it’s the scenery. From the tropical Caribbean jungle archipelago of Far Cry, to the African jungles of Far Cry 2, to the Indian Ocean jungle island of Far Cry 3, the series has a serious boner for tropical and exotic. The series is so well known for it’s tropical locations that one of the producers behind Just Cause was vocal about not wanting their game being known as Grand Theft Auto mixed with Far Cry. Because of this, it was very important for the film adaptation to take place in the non-jungles of the Pacific Northwest.

Palm trees are stupid anyway, right? That’s why Crysis 2 took place in Manhattan, a location never seen in any form of media.

Plus, they decided to cut out every single plot element from the game, ignoring the genetically engineered creatures (Trigens), and making Jack Carver, the protagonist (you carve her, you brought her!), more of a dick. Like America during World War 2, Jack Carver refuses to do absolutely anything about the shit going on around him till it directly involves him. This is totally okay, because making him a dick makes him a bad ass. It doesn’t matter if an audience likes the character, only that they see him kick ass! And trust me, you see him kick as much as you could see in a movie that seems to have cost around $30-40. It doesn’t matter that the weapons he holds manages to change from shot to shot in the exact same scene, because you’re so engaged in seeing the guy who stabbed a Nazi in the face in Inglorious Basterds fight pale-skin headed super soldiers created by Udo Kier’s character (an actor known most for that Korn music video). I assure you, no part of this movie is stupid, cliché, or retarded. And the scene where he seduces a girl by taking her to a bed that is in the middle of a forest for absolutely no reason and pressing his erection against her most definitely isn’t stupid.

They also cut out the landsharks, which actually hurts the movie.

Yes sir! This movie is fantastic! This whole thing isn’t sarcasm or a satirical way to point out how awful this movie is by holding up its flaws as the best parts because there are no flaws like that! The acting certainly wasn’t worse than a middle school play and the writing certainly doesn’t give you laughably bad dialogue that make YouTube comments seem like Walt Whitman! Not at all! I am absolutely not ashamed of seeing this movie back in 2008 and then watching it again because of how great Far Cry 3 looks and then creating some sort of alternate personality to deal with how bad it is! And I’m definitely not going to go drink a bunch of vodka and watch something like A History of Violence to remember what a good film adaptation is!

Yeah, I know it was based on a comic book, not a video game. The point is still valid.

Did I ever tell you what the definition of insanity is? Insanity is seeing the Far Cry movie more than once and expecting that shit to change… That. Is. Crazy. You can follow Dane on Tumblr and Twitter!